Ground Truth (32 page)

Sinclair would let dirty bombs explode rather than have Jack point at him as having put Montana in position to blackmail the United States government.

“Mr. Strider,” Gorton said, “nuclear material can come from anywhere in the country, and you don’t even know what’s in those trucks. Limiting our response to going after Montana would be a fatal error. Besides, if I give in to these terrorists, I’ll get another demand from some other group tomorrow. I’d also be undermining our allies who follow our lead in refusing to deal with terrorists.” He tilted his head back and straightened the collar of his flight jacket. “That’s not my style.”

Gorton was in political survival mode, and there wasn’t time to turn him around. Jack had to find and stop Montana himself, but there was too little time to fly to El Paso. Wait a minute. He was thinking about a commercial flight, but he was already at an Air Force base.

“I understand,” he said to Gorton, “but you won’t mind if I try to find Montana on my own, will you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I need the fastest ride there is from Travis to El Paso.”

Gorton glanced at Sinclair who nodded in support of Jack’s request.

Jack knew he’d just given Sinclair a win-win. If Jack didn’t find Montana, that would suit Sinclair fine. If he did find him, Montana would make sure Jack never testified against anyone.

“Mr. Strider, I’m still not persuaded this plant manager is a terrorist, but I’ll get you to El Paso. If you want help, I’ll round up some of the Special Forces stationed here at Travis to go along.”

“Yes, sir, I could use more eyes and muscle.”

“Sir,” Corte spoke up, “I’m sure the NSA would recommend against sending Special Forces. Mr. Strider’s search for the plant manager will take him into Mexico, a sovereign nation. Sending Special Forces in there could be considered an act of war.”

First terrorism, now war.
Corte had cleverly trapped Gorton. Jack held his breath, waiting for Gorton’s response.

Gorton frowned and said, “He’s right. After I get you down there, you’re on your own. Chief!” he shouted.

The Chief opened the door so quickly he must have posted himself right outside. “Sir?”

“Get Mr. Strider aboard the fastest ride to El Paso they’ve got on this base. I want them with wheels up inside thirty minutes. Do it now.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” He saluted and disappeared.

“Strider, if by some miracle you come up with something, contact me. Here’s a number that can reach me directly.” He wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it over. “Corte, get our Homeland Security team on a secure conference hookup. If we need to go to Condition Red, that’s what we’ll do. We’re not going to let those bastards get away with this.”

Jack thought a blind mole could see that e-mail came from Montana, but Gorton just wouldn’t get it. Instead, he’d rather swing at a piñata in a pitch black room. Gorton, Sinclair, and Corte—each for his own self-serving reasons—were guaranteeing that Montana
was
going to carry out his threat.

Chapter 50

July 12

1:45 p.m.

THE C-20B GULFSTREAM jet Gorton had lined up for Jack was still climbing as Sacramento passed below. Jack knew that while he was hunting for Montana, Sinclair would use his guile to discredit him with Gorton. If Sinclair succeeded, Jack would have to consider a career in Uzbekistan.

He tried his cell phone. Good signal, so he entered the number.

“Captain, my captain.” Gano’s voice sounded relieved.

“Where are you,” Jack asked, “and what do you have for me?”

“I’m in El Paso now. When I cruised by the Palmer plant earlier I didn’t see any of those big trucks, so I laid a fistful of your pesos on a worker getting off his shift. He said two of the black trucks left early this morning. No idea where they went. What happened at your big meeting?”

“Before I left for the meeting, while I was still at the hotel, Sinclair had a sniper try to kill me. He screwed up and killed Mac instead.” He had to stop for a moment and swallow hard.

Gano was silent for many seconds, obviously absorbing the news, knowing how Jack felt about Mac. Finally he said quietly, “So now Sinclair is all in, no holds barred.”

“And so am I.” He didn’t want to say anything more about Mac right now. “Sinclair beat me to Air Force One and undercut me with Gorton. When I got in to see Gorton, Sinclair and I had a free-for-all. He was about to win the decision when Gorton got an e-mail from someone who claimed to have planted multiple dirty bombs in the U.S. and Mexico. He wants $100 million by seven o’clock tonight or he’ll detonate the bombs.”

“Did the wacko claim responsibility?”

“Didn’t have to. I know damn well it came from Montana. He has the nuclear material, the trucks, and the motive—$100 million. But Gorton wouldn’t buy it. His intelligence expert persuaded him the e-mail came from terrorists.”

“Montana. Yeah, that fits. How did Sinclair play it?”

“He beat the terrorist drum big time. The last thing he wants is for his client’s plant manager to be the leading suspect after those bombs go off. He knows he’d be implicated. Gorton went for the terrorism theory because he’s better off politically if he follows the rule book—which means hunkering down and not paying anyone.”

“That’s plain ol’ country stupid. If Montana doesn’t get paid, he’ll blow up everything he can. I knew I should have snuffed him the night of the big fireworks.”

“Don’t rub it in. We have to find Montana and stop him in the next two hours, three hours at most. I’m aboard an Air Force jet out of Travis. I’ll meet you in front of the Delta terminal at El Paso International in an hour and a half.”

“I’ll be there. Debra with you?”

“She was supposed to meet me at Air Force One but didn’t show. If I can get her on the phone, I’ll ask her to be at the airport. Gano, if you can find Montana before I get there, that might be the most important thing you ever do in your life.”

“I’m on it,
comandante,”
Gano said and hung up.

Jack loosened his seat belt and stretched his legs. He felt strange being the only passenger on a plane built to serve fourteen VIPs. The crew never left the cockpit, probably under orders.

He sat again and let the day’s events unfold in his mind’s eye. If he hadn’t confronted Sinclair yesterday, pushed him so hard, he wouldn’t have sent an assassin, and Mac would still be alive. The image of Ana-Maria’s waxen face seldom left his mind, but grieving for both still had to wait. He closed his eyes and took a series of slow, deep breaths, then entered Debra’s number into his phone.

She answered after the first ring. “How did it go?”

“Not worth a damn. I really needed you there to help clinch the case against Sinclair. What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but by the time I got anything useful it was impossible to get to Travis in time. I tried to call, but apparently you’d turned off your cell phone.”

“They confiscate it before you board Air Force One.”

“I thought that might be it. Where are you now?”

“On an Air Force jet on my way to El Paso. I need to hear what you have for me.”

“I do have news. Some good, some bad.”

“Let’s get the bad news out of the way.”

“I did my damnedest, but I couldn’t get the witness you wanted. I’m on my way back to El Paso myself, about thirty miles away.”

“Wasn’t there some incentive or pressure you could use?”

“I tried everything. It just wasn’t possible.” Her voice conveyed her exasperation with his question.

Getting the witness he’d asked her to line up had been a long shot, but so crucial he’d convinced himself it would happen. Without that witness, he couldn’t make his case that Sinclair was the mastermind behind smuggling the nuclear waste.

Debra spoke into his silence. “You should have asked for the good news first. Then this wouldn’t seem so bad.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, tense and frustrated, “what’s the good news?”

“I’m bringing back some great evidence with me.”

“I hope it’s enough. Meet me at the Delta counter in the airport and tell me about it then.”

“I’ll be there.”

He gave her a high-speed summary of his confrontation with Sinclair and how Gorton had reacted to the e-mail threat. And why he was going to El Paso. He left out the part about Mac. He just couldn’t go over it again right now.

He concluded with, “Montana knew the roof was caving in on him. He knew that could happen, so he had a plan to hit the jackpot on his way out the door. As soon as he felt seriously threatened, he loaded the trucks with nuclear waste and explosives and sent them off. Figuring out what he’s doing isn’t enough. We can’t stop this truck-by-truck. We have to find
him.”

“He’d be crazy to go back to the plant or to his home in El Paso.”

“Right. In fact, he could have e-mailed Gorton from a laptop, BlackBerry, iPhone, or anything like that. He could check his account in the Swiss bank the same way.”

“I saw a documentary about terrorism,” Debra said, “that explained how a bomb could be detonated or deactivated by telephone, calling one number to detonate or another number to disarm.”

“Meaning that Montana could already be out of North America, maybe planning to trigger the bombs from someplace like Buenos Aires.” He looked out the window along the length of the wing and listened to the roar of the turbofan jets. “If he’s gone, this is pointless, so I have to believe he’s holed up in El Paso or Juarez. If one of his bombs is there too, he’ll break cover before the big bang. I’ll have the pilot contact all major airports within a few hundred miles of El Paso to see if Montana has a reservation on any flight. Problem is he could have bought a cheapo passport and ID kit so he could travel under a fake name. Same problem with checking hotels.”

“He has to avoid public places,” Debra said, “so maybe he dropped in on a girlfriend.”

“That’s the answer.”
He felt a flicker of hope. “The address of the sender of the e-mail to Gorton was cloaked, meaning it couldn’t be traced. That would be hard to arrange on a cell phone or BlackBerry, but easy on a regular computer. So he’s hiding in a place with a computer. But where?”

“I know where—and it’s not with a girlfriend!” Her excitement burst through the receiver. “Remember a week ago when I went dancing with him in Mexico City, the night you got so bent out of shape? He invited me to see his etchings as soon as I got to the Palmer plant to do that contract work.”

“Come on. He didn’t really say ‘etchings.’”

She chuckled. “Figure of speech. He was boasting about rare Aztec antiquities he’d bought on the black market. He’s obsessed with them. He said he keeps them at a lodge he owns on the mesa north of El Paso.”

“I’ve seen that mesa. There are dozens of homes up there.”

“He talked about a spectacular view of city lights at night and said he can see the ridge on Palmer plant grounds in Juarez.”

“Anything else, like a putting green, barn, pool—”

“Not a pool. He called his lodge ‘El Castillo’ because a dry moat runs around it.”

“That puts the lodge in a certain sector of the mesa, and the moat will be a giveaway from the air. I’ll call Gano and have him get airborne.”

He clicked off and entered Gano’s number.

“Anything on Montana?” Jack asked.

“Zilch. I called the plant, posing as a client. Montana was a no-show all day. I even took a run by his golf course and through the clubhouse at Sunland racetrack.
Nada.
I don’t know where else to look. He’s slithered out of sight.”

“Get airborne as fast as you can. Here’s what you’re looking for.” He relayed Debra’s information. “If you spot it, get out of there fast. Don’t spook him. And let me know.”

“Roger Wilco. I’m ten minutes from the airport now. Over and out.”

He called Debra back. “Gano’s on his way. If he finds the lodge, it’s our only shot before time runs out.” He thought about the black trucks, visualizing explosions ripping the containers apart and spraying radioactivity into the sky.

“What about calling the El Paso cops?”

“Even if they believed me, they’d barge in, and he’d detonate everything. But I’ll do this. If we don’t find the lodge and Montana, I’ll try to convince the cops to search for the black trucks. They’ll have to use unmarked cars in case Montana is in line-of-sight of a truck. Maybe I can get Gorton to send in some Special Ops people to help search. But that doesn’t help with trucks in other cities.”

“Suppose he is at El Castillo
.
Then what?”

“We have to take him by surprise. I have a plan, but it will put you at risk. I wouldn’t consider it if the stakes weren’t so high.”

“Think back to Casa Lupo. I’m a warrior.” Her voice was strong, every bit a warrior.

“I remember. Rent an SUV at the El Paso airport and have it waiting.”

“Will do. But what if Montana has his thugs with him when we find him?”

“He won’t. He doesn’t want witnesses. See you at the airport, Delta terminal.”

He closed his eyes, letting the vibrations of the plane wash over him. Even if they cornered Montana in his castle, he would be deadly. Jack knew his plan was much more likely to fail than succeed, and it could cost the lives of two people very important to him.